Devil Wraps His Hands In Rags
by Allureofproductivity
Summary: Danny couldn't feel much but pain and Rafe's solid warmth surrounding him as he shook. He held onto one thought. "Evelyn." It had become his prayer in this hell.
1. Chapter 1

Danny heard the plane make impact before it registered that he had crashed, but it only took five seconds for terror to hit and pain to make it through the fog of adrenaline clouding his scrambled brains. He moaned, his head draping forward to meet the controls and spasms of pain searing through his body. He had to get the fuck out, right now, because he could smell burning oil and knew it was going to reach the cockpit in only a few short minutes. His hands were numb and his breathing too harsh and heavy and he fumbled with the harness keeping him strapped to his blood slick seat. Vaguely, he could hear gunshots and someone screaming from the outside of the plane and he tried harder to find the damn buckle. His fingers caught on hard plastic and pressed down on reflex and he yanked himself from the shattered windshield, gagging on bile and forcing it down. Now would be a shitty time to go into shock. He stumbled around the nose of the plane, one hand dragging the dented metal for support. The screams were clearer now, but he couldn't make out the owner of that voice and instead focused on the vague outline of Rafe's wrecked plane, fire glowing in the humid twilight, sprung up from an oil leak somewhere near the tail.

Movement caught his blurred vision, and he tensed, ready to run. The figure was screaming at him, but it sounded like English, and Danny peered closer before groaning and letting his head meet his chest. He staggered and then let himself go boneless, because he'd know the shadow of the man coming towards him any day of his life. He whined low in his throat, ass planted in the damp earth as Rafe sprinted towards him. His vision greyed out and his spine went rigid as his nerve endings lit up in one burst of especially painful wildfire, and when he could focus, Rafe was there in front of him, one hand brushing his sticky neck gently.

"Easy now. Easy. What the hell were you thinkin'?"

Danny let out a laugh and it came out as a damp wheeze instead. It felt like someone had wrapped barbs around his ribcage and left arm, and his neck throbbed and oozed something wet and warm down his collar. His muscles tensed and he forced out something about better landings before trying to melt a little, seeking a release.

"You saved us back there."

"Rafe, I- there's somethin' in my neck-Jesus H... how's Gooz?"

Rafe just shook his head, calloused hands gliding over the raw skin of Danny's neck until they reached the central point of the pain and pressed down lightly.

"Gooz is fine. Here, let me get this out for ya."

There was a horrible tugging sensation in his neck and he keened, legs jerking. It felt like the muscles were being torn from beneath the skin and Danny choked audibly, barely making out Rafe's grunts as the blood slick metal slipped through his fingers. A movement caught Danny's eye from the grass near them and he tensed, Rafe still unaware. The butt of a rifle slammed down on Rafe's head just seconds after he turned to see what Danny was staring at, and Danny yelled his name out as cold metal was shoved against his temple.

He watched, helpless and gasping, as Gooz, Red, and Philip were dragged, hands up, into the patch of dirt he and Rafe were lying in. Rafe still hadn't regained alertness, his eyes clouded. Danny couldn't find Anthony and squeezed his eyes shut, praying he'd made it away from this disastrous turn of events. His chest heaved and ached and it was only then that Danny became aware of a nauseating throbbing behind his eyes. The barrel of the shotgun currently pressed to his head was only exacerbating it and the panting became a method of dealing with the nausea instead of a fear reflex. The japs were still screaming.

Hands grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him and he curled in on himself with a grunt, his ribs and arm screaming and his vision darkening around the edges. His eyes flew open and something slammed against his bruised and bloody back and he cried out, head hanging forward and vision focusing desperately on Rafe. His ankles were lashed together and he was being dragged across the dirt next to Danny. His eyes were wide and angry and desperate.

Danny choked again, forced up, ribs protesting vehemently. Japanese soldiers held him upright on either side and he couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't stop staring at Rafe in panic. He was doing what he'd always done, looking to Rafe for guidance, and all he saw was hate. He was yanked farther into a standing position and he grunted loudly, following it with a sharp yell. He saw Rafe's hand go for the pistol and couldn't do anything but scream at him.

"RAFE, NO."

The Japanese saw the gun as Rafe dropped it and jammed the business end of a rifle up against Danny's shoulder and pulled the trigger. He was the warning not to try anything and he gasped for air, something sticking and sucking in his lung as he fell backwards, vision giving way. People were screaming again and he coughed weakly, trying to move his arm, to curl around the wound, but he was still lashed to what felt like a yoke and instead he let himself pass out.

Cool fingers on his face and wrist brought him around and for a moment he forgot.

"Evelyn?"

"Nah bud, it's Rafe. Gonna get this thing off ya and get this rope around one ankle. We're like a damn chain gang, Danny."

"They get Fusco? Rafe?"

"You just focus on you right now, alright. Open your eyes, Danny, that's it."

The world was blurry and his double vision was hellish on his stomach but Danny forced himself to look at Rafe. Rafe's hand was covered in blood and he cupped Danny's chin, the other hand maintaining pressure to the bullet hole in his shoulder. It ached something fierce, and Danny was freezing. How was Rafe not? He was only in his t-shirt and still soaking in sweat.

"Rafe, I'm so cold... I'm so cold."

"Gooz, get over here and help me get his damn flight vest off so I can try to wrap his shoulder! I know, buddy, I know. We'll get you warmed up in a minute, you hear me?"

Danny nodded and Gooz was wrenching him out of his flight vest as Rafe maneuvered his arms through the holes. Danny screamed and his vision darkened again, only to return as Rafe zipped up his bomber jacket.

"You think you can stand, Danny?"

Danny nodded, and Rafe and Gooz pulled him up, holding him steady. His head spun and his stomach lurched and he sagged into Rafe's warm chest, completely spent. He felt his arm being slung over a shoulder and an arm wrapping around his torso gently but firmly and forced himself to look at Rafe, except there were two of him and Danny groaned aloud.

"Hey, hey, easy. What's wrong? What hurts, Danny?"

"There're two of ya... Can't hardly handle one."

Rafe chuckled.

"Musta hit your head pretty damn hard in that crash, man. Only one, scout's honor."

"You got kicked outta Boy Scouts..."

"That's besides the point. Just keep walking, Danny. Just keep walkin."

His feet were numb and heavy but he put one in front of the other, clinging to Rafe. He had no idea where they were going, but he was damn glad he wasn't alone.

**I have ventured from the Teen Wolf Fandom into the sucking void that is character death fix-it fics.**

**Stay Shiny,**

**Allure**


	2. Chapter 2

Danny was heavy. Rafe's arms were aching with his mostly dead weight, Danny's dark head warm on his shoulder. Tiny puffs of air brushed against Rafe's jaw, and faint whines filtered through his ears. Danny was still breathing, still alive, and hadn't given up yet. At this point in the night, Rafe wouldn't blame the kid if he had.

They had been practically wading through the warm, muggy damp of the Chinese countryside as POWs for hours, long enough for the moon to rise and arc across the sky. The light was growing in the east now, and they hadn't stopped once. Gooz was stumbling a little, Red keeping a steady hand near him. They were making their way through mountains by this point, the rice paddies sprawling beneath them, rocks and roots gripping the packed down path. Rafe tripped over something and jostled Danny, shaking him from his haze, tripping up his dragging feet and eliciting a sharp yelp from him.

"G-goddammit... Rafe..."

"How you doing, Danny?"

"Been...better...can't breathe too well..."

"How's the pain?"

"Not...too...bad."

The kid was desperate and choking for breath between words and Rafe felt something wet drip onto his shoulder and looked sideways. Danny's head was bleeding steadily again, adding to the assortment of nasty crusting around his face. Danny's eyes were squinted, two dark slits attempting to block out the predawn light, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth tight.

"You've always been a shitty liar, Danny. Now, for real, how's the damn pain?"

"You 'member that time I...slammed my hand...in the sliding barn door and it broke all the...little bitty bones an' most a the big'uns?"

"Yeah. You passed out and your hand was caught for 20 minutes."

"I...feel like that...but all over. Mostly my...ribs. My head hurts, Rafe."

The Japanese were shouting something to them, and then one motioned them off the path, to go hide in the woods. They went, gun muzzles pressed to their backs to ensure they would listen. Rafe got Danny down onto the earth behind a stand of stubby maple trees, Gooz and Red crouching next to them. Danny's head bobbed, his eyes widening.

"Rafe...listen. That sounds like...the...Colonel."

Sure enough, Doolittle's voice broke through the morning quiet, music to Rafe's ears. There were people with him, other pilots, and the Chinese. The Colonel was yelling in rapid fire Mandarin, and the other pilots were screaming for them.

"WALKER! WINKLE! Where the hell are you bastards?"

"MCCAWLEY! GOOZ, MAN, WHERE THE FUCK'D YOU GO?"

Gooz opened his mouth but Rafe swatted at him and he shut up.

"Do you wanna get everyone killed, you idiot? You yell now, the Japs'll shoot us dead before you can say "oops", you got me? We got this far, Gooz, don't fuck it up."

Gooz nodded and Danny moaned, burying his sweaty face in Rafe's bicep. Rafe rubbed Danny's neck, fingers grazing the spike of metal still buried in the flesh. It was loose, and Rafe motioned to Red to hand him his belt and then shoved it between Danny's teeth.

"Bite down, you hear me? Stay quiet. I'm gonna get this damn shrapnel out of your neck."

He got a faint nod against his bicep and then pulled. Gooz and Red scrambled to hold Danny down as he thrashed and bucked. Rafe grimaced, fingers sliding over the slick shard of steel, braced his feet against the base of a tree, and slid the shrapnel out. There was a spurt of blood that spattered across his cheeks and then a wet trickle. Gooz handed him a piece of fabric and Rafe pressed it hard against the perforation in Danny's neck. Danny was limp against Rafe's chest, breathing raspy and stuttering.

"You stay with me, dammit."

"R-Rafe...I...think..." Danny stopped, letting out a gasp and a few muffled wheezes. Rafe grimaced. Danny's chest sounded wrong, something sticking and rattling deep in a lung.

"You think what?"

"Gonna...gonna pass...out."

"No, you aren't. Danny, no you aren't."

Danny just moaned again, and Rafe passed a hand over his forehead. Danny was shaking hard, one hand clutching at Rafe's flight vest and the other dangling from a makeshift sling. Rafe unwrapped Danny's shoulder as they waited, noting with grim satisfaction that the bleeding had stopped at both the entry and the exit wounds. The damn bullet had gone straight through, probably ripping through something important, and Rafe gritted his teeth as he covered the hole back up with the dirty scrap Red had ripped off his t shirt when Rafe had asked, wrist deep in Danny's blood and slowly panicking. He checked Danny's neck next, the blood having slowed to a few drops oozing out as Rafe watched, then removed his uniform tie and used it as a makeshift bandage. He didn't dare look at Danny's ribs right now. Rafe wasn't entirely sure he wanted to see the damage done by the wreck.

Danny stayed still against his chest for the duration of Rafe's makeshift medical check, but the minute he was through, grey eyes were on his and Danny's grip had moved from his flight vest to his collar.

"Rafe...I don't...I don' wanna die…"

"You ain't gonna die, you moron. They didn't hit nothin' vital, you're fine."

"I'm cold…'m so cold."

Rafe gathered Danny to him a little tighter, rubbing Danny's arms through the leather of his jacket. Danny was drenched in sweat and blood and plastered with dirt, leaves sticking up from his hair. Rafe tried to hold his gaze, but Danny's eyes wouldn't focus right anymore, one looking towards Gooz, the other fixed on Rafe's left ear. One pupil was expanded and the other a pinprick.

"Danny?"

"Hmm?"

"How's your head?"

"Feels funny...I think I hit it on somethin'...Rafe, did I hit my head on summat?"

Rafe stiffened. That was bad, that was very bad. He shifted Danny into more of a sitting position, wincing when Danny gagged a little, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Dizzy?"

"Uhuh…"

"Danny, where are we? You have to tell me where we are."

"Uh, China...yeah?"

"Good. Why are we in China?"

"Bombed the shit outta Japan."

"And then what?"

"I crashed my damn plane, right? Oh god, oh god, where's Anthony? He get away?"

"Sure, Danny, Fusco got away."

"Alright...Rafe...'m tired."

"Well, don't go to sleep."

Rafe didn't have to look at Danny to know what face he was making, one lip rolled up in his mouth and the other pressed over top, eyes wide and frustrated.

They waited in the woods for a few more minutes before they were signaled to stand up. Instead of going back on the path, the leader of their captors pointed to the woods. Rafe shook Danny gently, then helped him to his feet. Danny whimpered, swaying and then letting his knees buckle.

"Hey, hey, Danny, stay up."

"I...can't…"

Sighing, Rafe hauled Danny up, wrapping his arms around him and letting Danny lay his head down on his shoulder again. Danny went limp, eyes rolling back into his head. Rafe hoisted him into a cradle hold, grunting with the weight. Red and Gooz crowded him, giving him some extra support as he carried Danny across the rough terrain, stumbling and tripping over roots, rocks, and fallen debris.

He sent a silent prayer up towards the sky, something he hadn't done in a long time. It was going to take some divine intervention for he and and the others to get out of this alive.

**There it is! R and R, blah blah blah**

**stay shiny,**

**Allure**


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